I just had a meeting with my adviser (grad school) about a paper I'm writing. The process is that I write, he reads it and makes corrections/comments, I revise based on his comments, and repeat ad nauseum. The majority of his comments improve the paper IMO, but it's a very frustrating process on both sides. The "Harry Potter" part? He thinks my writing is improving, but not as fast as he would like, so we end up discussing this every single time he hands back a draft, and he asks me how I think we could speed up this process. *headdesk* Well, not wasting time rehashing the same discussion over and over might be a start. Trust me, Professor, if I knew how to accelerate this process and get the paper written to your standards within the first draft or two, I would have done it by now. I want to be done with this hellish process as much as you do! Possibly more! I'm already trying everything I know.

He also wants a quick turn-around on revisions and for me to take more time to think about the structure, etc. Faster turn-around or me taking more time to think about X--please pick one, because I can't do both. He wonders why I didn't do Y in the draft, when Y is something we discussed after the draft was written and in his hands. Sorry Prof, no time machine. And finally, as soon as I learn one of his "rules" for writing and get in the habit of implementing it, he promptly decides it's time to throw in a random exception. I pare down my writing to a concise, factual, "dry" style in response to his comments, then get slammed for being too dry and boring and needing to keep the readers interested, next he's again extolling the virtues of a dry writing style.

Some days, I really wish I could just say "Hey, we've discussed all this a hundred times already. The hundred-and-first time isn't going to trigger a magical epiphany on my part. Will you please just go away so I can get started on the revisions and possibly learn something from them?" But that would probably land me in the student Darwinism thread, so I'll just keep nodding and mm-hmming until he's done and I can do the ding-dangity revisions.

It's not just me, BTW. All of his students go through this process, and they never learn the writing "fast enough." And although I'm sure it's hard to believe, I actually do like my adviser when we're not in the middle of the morass of writing. He's a genuinely nice guy, just with an habit of flogging a dead horse until I want to bury the thing, encase it in concrete, and build a few pyramids on top so he'll let the it drop already.

DH trained as an electrician in his late teens. I joke that he must have got some kind of zap that gave him a superpower that makes things work when he touches them. Seriously, the number is times people have tried and tried to get stuff working to no avail - TV, calculator, computer, kitchen scale - then he comes and does the exact same thing and it works is amazing.

I suggested a high-vis cape for his superhero costume, but he said it would have to be a vest - a cape wouldn't pass safety standards.

My father keeps threatening to solve the drought problems in other parts of the country by driving around with his lawn mower and thinking about mowing other people's lawns. Every time he goes to mow, it pours. A couple days ago he got about 5 minutes of mowing in before the rain started. We got 8 inches of rain that day.

For several years, I could do that by washing our cars (had to do both) by hand. A trip to a car wash didn't do the trick.

Sadly, my power no longer works. I wonder where it went...

Obviously it transferred to my father and his lawn mower.

I have also appropriated this power for my lawn mower. I can't tell you how many supposed-to-be-sunny weekend mornings have started with my alarm going off so that I could get up to mow the lawn while it was still cool outside, and then ended when I rolled back over and went to sleep because it was pouring outside.

I was just at the grocery store. It has one of those cards you get for free and will give you a sale price if there is one. A woman ahead of me had just gotten her receipt and was double-checking it. She said "no; this isn't right. The 'thanks for shopping with us name' isn't mine. You typed in my telephone number [they can look up your card number with a phone number] wrong and now I 'm not getting the sale prices."

The cashier apologized but said that returning it and reringing the purchases won't make discounts suddenly appear. She disagreed.

He called the manager at her request.

I am sad I had to leave before the resolution. Honestly anyone with a card gets the same sale prices as any other random person with a card.

If it is at Vons/Safeway/Pavillions, there actually could be different sales/coupon prices for different cards. You can add coupons including 'personalized deals' to your card. If they enter someone elses name, you'd get any general sale prices for all card users sure, but you'd miss out on any coupons you added to your specific card.

ETA: I just noticed someone else posted the same thing and that it didn't apply in this particular case... but it could I've saved TONS of money with some of those coupons and would be irritated to miss out on my $20+ savings (I've saved up to 80 bucks between sales prices and coupons there on big shopping trips)

Same at many stores, CVS, Target, Sephora as examples. Your purchases add up over a short period of time and when they meet the minimum, you get a reward certificate. My favorite is Publix, where you use your phone number and you key it in yourself.

I'm with that woman. I would have returned the whole order and had them ring it in again.

Had something similar happen last night. I was buying appetizer packs that were buy 2, get 1 free of equal or lower value. I had 6 of them: 3 at $4.99, 2 at $5.99 and 1 at $6.49. So by my calculation, one of the $4.99 and one of the $5.99 should be free. Nope - the computer designated 2 of the $4.99 ones free. So I made the cashier return the 3 higher priced ones and I bought those in a separate transaction. $1 is $1 and it's mine!

Logged

After cleaning out my Dad's house, I have this advice: If you haven't used it in a year, throw it out!!!!.

I'm with that woman. I would have returned the whole order and had them ring it in again.

Had something similar happen last night. I was buying appetizer packs that were buy 2, get 1 free of equal or lower value. I had 6 of them: 3 at $4.99, 2 at $5.99 and 1 at $6.49. So by my calculation, one of the $4.99 and one of the $5.99 should be free. Nope - the computer designated 2 of the $4.99 ones free. So I made the cashier return the 3 higher priced ones and I bought those in a separate transaction. $1 is $1 and it's mine!

I was shopping at an outlet store a few months ago which had everything "buy one get one 50% off." I ended up with about a dozen items at various prices. The register apparently wasn't set up to do the 50% off automatically, so the cashier had to do it by hand. So she'd scan one random item, then take 50% off the next, then scan the next at full price, etc. Like, full price for the $5 pair of socks, but half-off the $60 bra. And she had to stop and ask "What's half of 60? What's half of 22?" for each thing, despite having a calculator in her hand. I tried to correct her but she didn't want to hear it from me - eventually the other saleslady made her void the whole thing, sort everything in order by price, and go down the list so the sale prices would be correct

I'm with that woman. I would have returned the whole order and had them ring it in again.

Had something similar happen last night. I was buying appetizer packs that were buy 2, get 1 free of equal or lower value. I had 6 of them: 3 at $4.99, 2 at $5.99 and 1 at $6.49. So by my calculation, one of the $4.99 and one of the $5.99 should be free. Nope - the computer designated 2 of the $4.99 ones free. So I made the cashier return the 3 higher priced ones and I bought those in a separate transaction. $1 is $1 and it's mine!

The problem with this is when you buy things all together like this, the computer is usually programmed to give you the free ones of the smallest value. You have to do separate transactions at most registers to get it to give you the items you had planned on being free. Technically the computer isn't wrong, you're getting the items of lower value free, but its calculations aren't the same as the logical ones in your mind.

I understood it; I just wasn't willing to accept it. Something to keep in mind when buying multiples of things on a buy (1, 2, 3) get 1 free offer. If one group is significantly more than another group, purchase that group separately!

Logged

After cleaning out my Dad's house, I have this advice: If you haven't used it in a year, throw it out!!!!.

The issue? I do not work for Weight Watchers. I work for the food industry with an organization. And while we have had past ads in the WW magazine, but we aren't associated with WW at all.

So no, I am sorry, gentle reader. Just because we have a website does not mean that I have access to everyone's logins/usernames/passwords for every other website on the web. Sadly, this isn't the first time that I have been asked for login information for some other site.

FTR - Yes, I was a good kid and sent them the direct link to WW's contact page to get information about retrieving their info.

I'm with that woman. I would have returned the whole order and had them ring it in again.

Had something similar happen last night. I was buying appetizer packs that were buy 2, get 1 free of equal or lower value. I had 6 of them: 3 at $4.99, 2 at $5.99 and 1 at $6.49. So by my calculation, one of the $4.99 and one of the $5.99 should be free. Nope - the computer designated 2 of the $4.99 ones free. So I made the cashier return the 3 higher priced ones and I bought those in a separate transaction. $1 is $1 and it's mine!

The problem with this is when you buy things all together like this, the computer is usually programmed to give you the free ones of the smallest value. You have to do separate transactions at most registers to get it to give you the items you had planned on being free. Technically the computer isn't wrong, you're getting the items of lower value free, but its calculations aren't the same as the logical ones in your mind

The registers at my store do the same thing, but we can go around the system by sorting items first and ringing items and coupons one at a time. Our customers appreciate it.

I'm with that woman. I would have returned the whole order and had them ring it in again.

Had something similar happen last night. I was buying appetizer packs that were buy 2, get 1 free of equal or lower value. I had 6 of them: 3 at $4.99, 2 at $5.99 and 1 at $6.49. So by my calculation, one of the $4.99 and one of the $5.99 should be free. Nope - the computer designated 2 of the $4.99 ones free. So I made the cashier return the 3 higher priced ones and I bought those in a separate transaction. $1 is $1 and it's mine!

The problem with this is when you buy things all together like this, the computer is usually programmed to give you the free ones of the smallest value. You have to do separate transactions at most registers to get it to give you the items you had planned on being free. Technically the computer isn't wrong, you're getting the items of lower value free, but its calculations aren't the same as the logical ones in your mind

The registers at my store do the same thing, but we can go around the system by sorting items first and ringing items and coupons one at a time. Our customers appreciate it.

That's a programming problem, then. Plenty of stores do it correctly (i.e. every other one is discounted when sorted by price).